Palace were held to an eventual 1-1 draw by Eddie Howe’s side but dominated proceedings in terms of creating goalscoring opportunities, with 16 shots to the visitors’ one at Selhurst Park.
In the end, moments after Daniel Muñoz’s 94th-minute header secured Palace a point – the least they deserved from the game – Hughes told Palace TV: “It's a strange feeling after the game. I thought we dominated play in a lot of aspects, and then you find yourself 1-0 down.
“It’s always nice to score in the last minute. It feels like a win in that sense, but then when you take a step back and you look over the whole game, it's kind of two points dropped with the chances we had, and also keeping theirs to a minimum.
“I think they had one blocked shot in the whole 90 minutes, which is pretty incredible when you think about it. It's a frustrating one.
“I think those stats, when you've [restricted them to] one blocked shot in the whole game against Newcastle – a top team, top attacking team – it says a lot about how we defended. It's just a matter of putting the ball in the back of the net at the other end.
“When they go 1-0 up it's frustrating because then you have to claw yourself back into the game, which obviously we did eventually. If we score the first goal in the first-half, it kind of gives us momentum to go on and potentially kill the game earlier.”